Blind Cricket Diplomacy for India-Pakistan

A one-day international between the blind cricket teams of India and Pakistan in Islamabad, Nov. 22, 2011.

India’s blind cricket team has agreed to tour where very few other international sides dare to venture: Pakistan.

G.K. Mahantesh, general secretary of the Cricket Association for the Blind in India, said Wednesday the two countries have agreed to a series in Pakistan in February, following a successful tour there in 2011.

“Both teams play competitive cricket, this builds a lot of harmony. We want to work toward building that camaraderie and a harmonious relationship… we want to grow bilateral ties,” Mr. Mahantesh said.

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The decision comes at a tense time in relations between the two countries following the deaths of five Indian soldiers near the disputed border with Pakistan early Tuesday. “Unfortunately, issues like what happened on the border are very disturbing, some vested interests are trying to sabotage growing friendly ties,” Mr. Mahantesh said.

He said the details of the tour to Pakistan haven’t yet been finalized, but it will likely feature three Twenty20 matches and three 40-over matches in Islamabad and Lahore. He added that the Indian players fondly remember the 2011 series in those two cities, describing security arrangements as fantastic.

Pakistan has been off-limits to international cricket teams since 2009, when gunmen attacked a convoy carrying the Sri Lankan side to a Test match in Lahore. Six policemen and two civilians were killed in the attack and several Sri Lankan players were injured. Ever since, Pakistan has hosted series overseas, predominantly in the United Arab Emirates, as cricket associations remain wary about touring the country.

Afghanistan is the only full-sighted team to have toured Pakistan since the 2009 attack, playing an unofficial series in February.

In addition to traveling to Pakistan in 2011, and losing the series, India’s blind team has also hosted Pakistan, in March 2012 and most recently in the T20 World Cup for the Blind in December in Bangalore. The two teams made it to the final, which India won by 29 runs. In blind cricket, this was an upset as Pakistan has long been the world’s top team, winning the 40-over World Cup in 2002 and 2006.

“When India and Pakistan plays, the crowd is tremendous. In Bangalore, there were more than 10,000 people watching the World Cup final,” Mr. Mahantesh said.

During the tournament, Pakistan’s captain Zeeshan Abbasi was hospitalized after he accidentally drank disinfectant from a bottle left in the place where mineral water was usually kept in his hotel room. He was kept under observation for four hours but was declared fit to play the next day, said CABI, India’s blind cricket association.

Blind cricket uses a bearings-filled plastic ball to help players hear it as it bounces on the ground or travels through the air. Players also count on the voices of teammates to position themselves. Each 11-member team should field four players who are fully blind (B1), as well as four who can see up to three meters (B2), and three who can see up to six meters (B3).

India’s squad for the tour of Pakistan will be selected after the country’s top two teams play in Delhi in December, Mr. Mahantesh said. While there aren’t any official numbers, at least 20,000 people play blind cricket in India, he said. The World Health Organization estimates there are around eight million blind people in India, roughly 20% of the world’s total.

Strong states for blind cricket include Karnataka, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and the capital New Delhi, but talent is spread across the country, according to Mr. Mahantesh. “Most of the players love to identify themselves with their favorite players,” he said before running through a list of Indian sighted cricket stars such as Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh.

“The blind play cricket with a lot of passion. It helps mold them into confident individuals,” he said. “But it needs financial and human resources.”

“Unfortunately we are yet to have any big time patronage,” Mr. Mahantesh said. CABI was established by Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled, with the stated objective of using “the spirit of cricket to enable the visually impaired to look at life positively and gain confidence in their ability to win.”

The T20 World Cup in Bangalore attracted sponsorship from State Bank of India, the Karnataka government and others, but there is little in the way of regular funding for CABI, Mr. Mahantesh said.

“We have requested the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) to recognize us and consider us as an affiliate… Hopefully they will consider,” Mr. Mahantesh said when asked about CABI’s relationship with the BCCI, the world’s most powerful cricket body.

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